Bites from other Blogs

Definitely Not Martha recently made some Pumpkin Coconut Cream Tartlets that are a neat twist on a traditional pumpkin pie. The single-serving size tarts have a pumpkin pie-like filling made with pumpkin puree, coconut milk and spices that is cooked on the stovetop and spooned into phyllo dough tart shells, then topped with a coconut whipped cream. The shells are baked ahead of time and filled just before serving, so that they stay as crispy as possible as a contrast with the creamy filling.

The next time you’re looking for a dessert that packs a good dose of both coffee and chocolate, you might want to take a look at the Chocolate Coffee Bundt Cake that The Tart Tart baked up. This cake has a lot of coffee in it, and that coffee is balanced with a lot of cocoa powder. The result is a cake that has a dark chocolate flavor with an overtone of coffee to set it off, and a cake that is so dark and luscious looking that it is just about irresistible. You don’t need any glaze to finish this cake off, but a scoop of cafe latte ice cream would be a good match.

A tea cake is usually a cake that is served with tea. In the case of Once Upon A Cutting Board‘s Earl Grey Vanilla Tea Cake, it refers to a cake that is made with tea, as well as served with it. The cake starts out with tea-infused milk, using a lot of tea to concentrate the earl grey flavor. The rest of the cake is made with a combination of regular and whole wheat flours, and spices like vanilla, cardamom, nutmeg and cinnamon. The infused milk joins these elements to produce a cake that has a lightly spiced and delicate tea flavor that makes a great afternoon tea time snack or brunch dish.

The Frosted Speculoos Cookie Butter Bars that Butter Me Up, Brooklyn! put together are a great way to make good use of a jar of Biscoff spread, also known as cookie butter. The bars have a consistency that is somewhere between a blondie and cake, with a tight crumb and a dense, but tender texture. There is a generous amount of cookie butter in the bars, with brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon to highlight its flavor. The bars are also topped off with a cookie butter frosting that really brings the brown sugar cookie flavor out.

Toaster strudel pastries are a freezer-to-toaster breakfast snack that have a sweet filling in between two layers of flaky pastry. They’re one of those things that look at lot more impressive on the commercial than they do once you hav the box at home, but it’s certainly a promising idea for a pastry. Tracey’s Culinary Adventures used that frozen product as inspiration for a homemade creation, Apple Cinnamon Toaster Strudels. These pastries have a delicious homemade apple filling between two layers of buttery puff pastry. They’re in a whole new league from the freezer product, and these really do make an amazing fall breakfast treat.